Depression

A recent study combining public health databases and computer simulations suggests that the sexual side effects of a common antidepressant involve specific sensory disruptions. The drug might also interact with proteins that regulate cellular stress and inflammation.

A six-month study found that depressive symptoms and day-to-day emotional instability are linked to decreased sexual desire and increased sexual distress in people newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Most research on social media and depression has focused on teenagers. A new analysis of more than 183,000 American adults suggests the link extends across the adult lifespan and has held steady for over a decade.

Nearly one in five women seeking psychiatric help for anxiety or depression also meet the criteria for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new research highlighting how overlapping symptoms obscure accurate diagnoses.

Older adults with depression tended to have a smaller volume in one part of the hippocampus, a brain region hit early by Alzheimer’s disease. The link did not appear to be explained by Alzheimer’s-related proteins.

A new study identifies a stable, brain-derived RNA molecule in the bloodstream that accurately predicts whether a patient will respond to common SSRI antidepressants, potentially saving months of trial-and-error treatments.

During psychiatric treatment, a patient's personality and depression symptoms change in tandem. A new study reveals that high neuroticism slows recovery across multiple symptoms, while extraversion and agreeableness may help patients bounce back faster.

A single dose of psilocybin eased depression within days in a small Swedish trial, outperforming an active placebo for more than three months on patients’ self-ratings. By one year, however, the placebo group had largely caught up.

Young adults with weaker incoming connections to the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, a small region that helps regulate emotion, tended to report more depressive symptoms, according to brain scans of 890 healthy volunteers.

A large study reveals that unhealthy habits like excessive screen time and poor diet tend to group together in teenagers. These behavioral clusters strongly predict the future onset of combined anxiety and depression.

A massive new review of medical data reveals that lower handgrip strength is linked to a higher risk of developing depression over time, suggesting physical strength may serve as an early indicator of general health and mental vulnerability.

By simulating human visual processing with a deep neural network, researchers have discovered a computational marker that predicts an adolescent's risk for developing depression up to four years before symptoms appear.

Using genetic test results to guide antidepressant prescriptions did not improve depression symptoms after 3 months in a large clinical trial. But by 6 months, more patients in the gene-guided group had reached remission.

In a study of more than 167,000 children in Wales, autism and ADHD rates were similar whether a mother’s depression was treated with antidepressants or left untreated. Depression itself, however, was linked to more special educational needs.

Recovering from depression doesn’t always mean feeling things fully again. In a study of 106 patients on antidepressants, emotional blunting was less common among patients in remission but still affected 45% of them.